An Impressive First 20 Years of the Internet

A couple weeks ago, we were seeing everyone jumping on the 20 year birthday of the public internet. That got us thinking about what’s really happened over the past 20 years and how the internet evolved into what we see today. It really is impressive to think that a Cold War relic like DARPA that was essentially for used for government spying has come all this way to become this amazing tool for government spying.

WTF??? Really? That’s it? Just 20 years of the evolution of spying? Not really. There have been some pretty sweet advancements in how we organize and retrieve information and all kinds of new ways to break up a marriage.

We decided to have our friend Jeremie at Big Red Ape throw together an illustration that summarizes the evolution of the internet over the past 20 years. We think he did an amazing job. Click the image to see the full size version.

So what do you think? Are we missing anything important? What do you think is the most important innovation in the first 20 years of the internet?

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About Brian LaFrance

Brian LaFrance has been involved in various aspects of internet marketing since 1999 and enjoys helping people solve problems. He's currently Lead SEO Analyst for CBS Interactive, runs his own SEO consulting & web development company, and speaks at various industry conferences.